crimes and misdemeanors

Hostage Situation in Lower Manhattan May Have Been a False Alarm [Updated]

When the NYPD attempted to serve a warrant this morning tied to the killing of a Pace University student in 2010, the suspect barricaded himself inside a downtown apartment. Or so police thought. Jimmy Siders, who authorities believe helped set up the fatal robbery of a 21-year-old college pot dealer years ago, was reportedly holding multiple people hostage, including his wheelchair-bound mother and two children, according to the New York Post. The standoff started at 40 Madison Street around 8 a.m. today and lasted for hours. “We prefer for him to come out voluntarily,” said NYPD spokesman Paul Browne. But Siders might not have been inside at all.

Update: Gothamist is reporting that multiple people were in the apartment and eventually walked out on their own, more than four hours later: “An NYPD spokesman on the scene now says that Siders was never in the apartment.” NY1 adds, “the man is not in the neighborhood.”

Something strange happened here 

Update II: “We were talking to the mother and it just took several hours to establish that he was not inside,” Browne said, according to the New York Times.

Hostage Situation in Lower Manhattan